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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	law_n	life_n	write_v	2,944	5	5.7098	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32696	The immortality of the human soul, demonstrated by the light of nature in two dialogues.	Charleton, Walter, 1619-1707.	1657 (1657)	Wing C3675; ESTC R20828	97,023	206

for of themselves they neither promove nor impede Mans felicity unlesse only by accident or as their speculation may be pleasant for the time and it little relateth to mans happinesse whether there be Antipodes or not for we in our Hemisphere can live without commerce with them or whether the Earth or Sun be moved since all the Apparences are the same either way But as for the Opinion of the Soul 's surviving the body it is not indifferent wheit be true or not Nor is Man destitute of a Natural propension to believe it when it relateth to his Supreme and everlasting Felicity Isodicastes From the Antiquity Universality and Perpetuity of any Opinion I think we may safely conclude upon the Verity of it From the Antiquity of it because according to that Rule Idem esse verum quodcunque primum id adulterinum quodcunque posterius that which is the most antient is likely to be the most true in respect of the purity and sincerity of mens Minds in the Primitive Age of the World their Understandings being then more clear perspicacious and their judgements lesse perverted by irregular Affections and temporal Interest From the Universality because it seems inconsistent with the Goodnesse of God to have made us of a Nature so subject to error as that All Mankind should be deluded From the Perpetuity because as Cicero worthily noteth Opinionum commenta delet dies Naturae judicia confirmat Time destroyeth all those fancies which have no other ground but only human opinion but it strengthneth all those judgements which are founded upon Truth and pure natural Reason And therefore this Notion of the Souls Immortality being so Ancient as that it seems to have entered into the World together with the First Man and what Plutarch out of Sophocles saith of the Antiquity of Religious principles Non nunc enim neque heri sunt ista prodita Semper valuere nec quando inierint liquet may be most aptly accommodated thereunto and so Universal as that the apprehension of a Deity without which no man ever lived for as Tully remarketh Multi quidem de Diis prava sentiunt omnes tamen esse vim Naturam Divinam arbitrantur seems not to have been more Common And lastly so Perpetual as that Time doth rather confirm that decay it I must judge it to be a sound and proleptical truth especially when I reflect also upon that other Character Athanasius hath given of the verity and naturalnesse of a General Tenent viz. that the concernment of it is equally diffusive to all men And did I not know Lucretius that your present businesse is Contradiction I should a little wonder how you could alleage that so in-considerable an Objection of the opinion of the Soul's Immortality being a Fiction of the First Law-makers For you well understand from what incredible Authority that impious Whimsy was derived even from Euripides the Poet who suborning the Person of Sisyphus in his Tragedy to speak such Atheistical conceipts as otherwise he durst not vent introduceth him telling this formal tale That the life of men in old time was salvage and barbarous like that of Wild Beasts the stronger by violence oppressing the weaker untill at last men were necessitated to devise certain severe Laws for the suppressing of mutual slaughter and other acts of injustice But when they found after long experience that all those Laws were ineffectual to the coercing men from enormities and outrages because they could take hold of only open and publick offences and reached not to close and secret ones There arose up among them a certain subtle and politique Governour who invented a mean to provide against that mischief also and to prevent clandestine and secret violations of common Right and Justice as well as manifest and notorious And that was by insinuating into the peoples heads Quod sit perenni vita vigens aliquis Deus Qui cernat ista audiat atque intelligat c. that there was an Immortal Power or Deity above them who took notice of all their most secret actions and designes and would most severely punish all injustice in another life which was to succeed this and to continue eternally The like to which is very solemnly told by Cicero in the person of Cotta in his first Book de Natura Deorum and also by Seneca in his second Book of Natural Questions But how contrary to Reason as well as to the authenticall Monuments both Divine and Human of Ancient times and the first foundation of Republicks or Societies is too well known even to your self Lucretius to need my further insisting thereupon However this praise is due to you that you have omitted nothing that might impugne Athanasius his Argument of the Soul's Eternity desumed from the Universal belief of it by men of all Nations and in all Ages Athanasius Having received not only your Approbation Noble Isodicastes but your Assistance also in this my First Moral Argument I need no other other encouragement to proceed to the Second which ariseth from Mans inbred or rather innate and inseparable Appetite of Immortality For there is no man who doth not desire to subsist Eternally nay not those very persons who seem to impugne and disavow that desire by a contrary opinion as Epicurus and all his Sectators could ever suppress or extinguish it from glowing perpetually in their breast notwithstanding all their pretences of being free from any such expectation as may be inferred from hence that they endeavoured to perpetuate their names and memories to all posterity by their Books and opinions And therefore it is not needfull for us to confirme this Assertion by the Example of Cleombrotus and the Disciples of Hegesias who were so far transported with the force of Plato's and His discourses of the Souls eternal state after death that they could not forbear to lay violent hands upon themselves that so they might set their impatient souls at liberty from the wearisom prison of Flesh and emancipate them into that their more proper and delightfull mansion All we shall urge is only this that There is no man who thinks himself unconcerned in Futurity Witness that general ambition all men have to perpetuate their names in the records of immortal Fame some by the founding and institution of Common-wealths Sects Societies and the prescription of Lawes for the continuation of them others by valiant acts in warre even to the loss of health limbs and life itself others by erecting pyramids obeliks Tombs statues and other monuments of their greatness and heroical atcheivements others by writing learned and usefull Books and even such as import the contempt of posthume Glory and fame others by begetting of children adoption of heirs publick legacies of piety and the like all which are strong and lively testimonies that this Appetite of surviving their funerals is implanted in their Minds by Nature's owne hand and so impossible ever to be totally eradicated Now forasmuch as

their Nature but only that they are two we repeat the same Idea we had before which comes thereby to be Universal and we call this number by the same Universal name After the same manner when we behold a Figure comprehended in Three lines we form in our Mind a certain Idea thereof which we call the Idea of a Triangle and we afterward alwaies use the same Idea as an Universal one to represent to us all other Figures consisting of three lines Again when we perceive that among Triangles there are some which have one right angle and others which have not we form in our selves the Universal Idea of a rectangle Triangle which in relation to the former Idea as more General we call a Species And that rectitude of the Angle is the Universal Difference by which all rectangle Triangles are distinguished from others Further that in all such Triangles the Basis is in power equal to the powers of the sides this is a Propriety competent to all such and only to such Triangles And lastly if we suppose that some of these Triangles are moved and others not this will be in them an Universal Accident And after this Manner doth the Understanding frame those Five Universals Genus Species Difference Propriety and Accident which really are but so many several Modes or Manners of our Cogitating or Thinking and having no existence in Nature but only in Mans Understanding do bear pregnant testimony of its being Immaterial Lucretius Here you say it is undeniably certain that the Understanding hath a power to abstract things from all conditions of Matter and all Particularities when for my part I professe I can find no such power in my self For after many the most serious essayes I could make I could never yet conceive an Universal but there doth alwaies occur to my Mind somwhat of Particularity and that under some certain Magnitude Figure Colour and the like adjuncts of Body So that it seems either I have not an Understanding as Active and Comprehensive as other men have or else those Unbodied and Universal Notions of which you and other Philosophers talke so solemnly are meer Chimera's invented by curious and wanton Wits to amuse such vulgar heads as mine is Athanasius You cannot be ignorant of that power in your self as you pretend Lucretius For though your Mind is not capable of devesting Objects of their particular Magnitude Figure Colour and the other concomitants of Matter altogether and at once yet it can easily doe it successively or one after another and that is sufficient to attest and manifest that the Intellect hath this power of Abstracting and forming Universals as I have explained Lucretius I have read a certain book written by one Hieronymus Rorarius a learned Prelate conteining a collection of all Arguments commonly urged to prove that many Brute Animals have the use of Reason not only aswell as but in a greater proportion than Man himself hath and among the rest He affirmes that they also frame Universals as in particular the species of Man according to which as often as they see a two-legged and erect Animal they take it to be a Man and not a Lion or Horse or the like And if so what becomes of this Prerogative of the Human Intellect you so much depend upon for testimony of its Incorporiety Athanasius If this were true yet doubtless Brutes can have no knowledg of the Universality of that Species or universal Nature of Man viz. Humanity as abstracted from every degree of singularity But we have no reason to grant the Supposition for as Brutes doe not apprehend things abstracted but concrete as not Colour but a body coloured not a sapour but a body sapid c so ought we to conceive that there is nothing else in a Dog for instance but only the Memory of singulars or of those single men whom he hath seen and taken notice of and when he meets a man whom he hath not seen afore his phansy instantly presents him the image of some one he hath seen afore and so he takes him to be a man Nor can you recurr to that vulgar subterfuge that we are not so well acquainted with the nature of Beasts as to understand what is done in the secret cells of their brains and after what manner they apprehend objects seeing it is not difficult for us to inferr as much from their operations or external actings For in case they could aspire to so much perfection as to frame Universal Notions of things as we doe and reason upon them as we doe it were not to be doubted but it would come into their minds to enquire into the acts of their progenitors what they knew before them how they might signify to others at distance what themselves have thought and done and how they might devolve memorials to their posterity They would likewise attempt to frame Arts usefull in their lives and doe many noble actions of which it is impossible they should have the least hint or notice For as much therefore as no age can give us an Example of any such action done by any Beast whatever we may safely conclude that they have no notion of Universals as Rorarius and you from him seem to suppose So that this prerogative of Mans Understanding in framing Universals remains entire and untoucht and while it doth so I need not fear the stability of what I have founded thereupon viz that the. Human Intellect is Incorporeall And therefore if you have no more to object against this my reason I doubt not but Isodicastes will give his vote on my side Idosicastes I should be grossly partial Athanasius if I did not confess that you have foiled your adversary at this weapon yet I am sure Lucretius is so candid an Antagonist as to account it no dishonour to be overcome by Truth and I presume He doth contend only to make your conquest the more absolute Athanasius To these few Reasons of the Immateriality of the Human Soul desumed from the excellency of her operations I might here add a multitude of others of the same extraction and equivalent force as in particular that of the existence of Corporeal natures in the Soul by the power of apprehension that of her drawing from multitude to unity her apprehension of Negations and Privations her conteining of Contraries without opposition her capacity to move without being moved herself the incompossibility of opposite propositions in the understanding and sundry others the least whereof is of evidence and vigour sufficient to carry the cause against all those Enemies to her Immortality who would degrade her from the divine dignity of her nature to an equality with the souls of Beasts that are but certain dispositions of Matter and so obnoxious to dissolution upon change of the same by contrary agents But considering that the certainty of truth ought to be estimated rather by the weight than number of testimonies and that the discourses I have already